1. Human Resources Management
Instructor: Erlan Bakiev, Ph.D.
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2. Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 4
Managing Diversity
Diversity is an important concept to understand and a reality in today’s workplace. Furthermore, it is essential for managers understand how diversity can enhance the workplace and work with the challenges of diversity.
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3. Chapter Challenges Understand the meaning of diversity
Develop familiarity with major challenges in managing employee diversity
Become aware of major elements of diversity in organizations
After reading Chapter 4, you should be able to deal more effectively with the following challenges:
1. Understand the meaning of diversity
2. Develop familiarity with major challenges in managing employee diversity
3. Become aware of major elements of diversity in organizations
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4. Chapter Challenges
Learn how to improve the management of diversity in organizations
Learn how to avoid potential pitfalls in diversity management programs
In this chapter, we’ll also discuss the following chapter challenges:
Learn how to improve the management of diversity in organizations
Learn how to avoid potential pitfalls in diversity management programs
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5. What Is Diversity? Diversity Stereotyping Why manage diversity?
Characteristics a person has little or no control over
Characteristics that people can adopt, drop, or modify
Stereotyping
Why manage diversity?
Diversity simply means individuals have characteristics that make them unique or different. Individual characteristics over which a person has little or no control include biologically determined characteristics such as race, sex, age, and certain physical attributes, as well as the family and society into which one is born. The second category is characteristics that people can adopt, drop, or modify during their lives through conscious choice and deliberate efforts. These include work background, income, marital status, military experience, political beliefs, geographic location, and education.
Stereotyping: Assuming that group averages or tendencies are true for each and every member of that group. You must keep in mind the distinction between the sources of diversity and diversity itself or you will likely be stereotyping. Although employees are diverse, a relatively small amount of this diversity is explained by their group membership.
Why manage diversity? To survive and prosper in an increasingly heterogeneous society, organizations must capitalize on employee diversity as a source of competitive advantage.
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6. Management of Diversity
Affirmative Action vs. Managing Diversity
Inclusiveness
Management of diversity is the set of activities involved in integrating nontraditional employees (women and minorities) into the workforce and using their diversity to the firm’s competitive advantage. Management of diversity is not a new label for affirmative action, as some believe.
Affirmative action first emerged from government pressures on business to provide greater opportunities for women and minorities.
Inclusiveness is another term referring to diversity of management, but specifically is a term meaning that the intent is making all employees feel that they are an integral part of the same organization and that they share a common desire to make the firm succeed regardless of their race, gender, age, etc.
Demographic trends: In the next decade or so, we will see a dramatic changes in demographics. Let’s look at some specifics.
Demographic Trends
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7. Demographic Trends U.S. Population
46.6% growth rate in age 55 or older
72% white Americans
Estimated to be 50% of total U.S. population in 2030
47% Women
16% Hispanics
13% African Americans
5.6% Asian Americans
2% other minority groups
In top 20 metropolitan markets minorities make up a majority of the population
The demographic trends are continuing to change drastically, with the current figures as noted.
What is interesting to note is that one-third of small businesses are started by women and minorities, and these small businesses employ more than three-fourths of the U.S. population.
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8. Diversity Trends Interracial marriages
Over the next decade, 75% of jobs will be filled by women and minorities
Many first-, second-, and third-generation Americans are descended from immigrants who are of mixed race. Additionally, many interracial marriages will continue to rise and thus make the standard race categories blurred.
Additionally, over the next decade, 75% of jobs will be filled by women and minorities.
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9. Diversity as an Asset Greater Creativity Better Problem Solving
Greater System Flexibility
Employee diversity can improve many positive aspects of organizational performance. Employee diversity can improve organizational functioning by stimulating greater creativity, better problem solving (helps deter groupthink), greater system flexibility (generates openness to new ideas and greater tolerance), and better information (provides broader scope of information from many experiences and knowledge that diversity brings).
Better Information
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10. Management of Diversity
Leads to better marketing strategies for a multicultural, multiethnic population
Management of diversity leads to better marketing strategies for a multicultural, multiethnic population, and most successful firms realize this. Many company examples are present. Colgate, for example, leads the oral care market because of its focus on the maturing population (fighting gingivitis). Additionally, with women directly influencing 80% of all retail spending, many companies target their products toward women.
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11. Challenges in Managing Diversity
Diversity vs. Inclusiveness
Individual vs. Group Fairness
Resistance to Change
Although employee diversity offers opportunities that can enhance organizational performance, it also presents managers with a new set of challenges. These challenges include:
Diversity vs. Inclusiveness—In recent years, there has been some debate about the benefits of emphasizing diversity rather than inclusiveness, which some see as a way of bringing people together. Even though it becomes semantics at some point, the take-away lesson is that diversity management is still politicized and highly charged.
Individual vs. Group Fairness—the extent to which a universal concept of management, which leads to standardized management practices, should be replaced by a cultural relativity concept of management, which calls for the molding management practices to the workforce’s different sets of values, beliefs, attitudes, and patterns of behavior.
Resistance to Change—Although employee diversity is a fact of life, the dominant groups in organizations are still composed of white men. Some argue that a long-standing corporate culture is very resistant to change and that this resistance is a major roadblock for women and minorities seeking to survive and prosper in a corporate setting.
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12. Challenges in Managing Diversity
Group Cohesiveness & Interpersonal Conflict
Segmented Communication Networks
Resentment
Group Cohesiveness & Interpersonal Conflict—Although employee diversity can lead to greater creativity and better problem solving, it can also lead to open conflict and chaos if there is mistrust and lack of respect among groups.
Segmented Communication Networks—Shared experiences are often strongly reinforced by segmented communication channels in the workplace. Segmented communication channels where most communication within organizations occurs between members of the same sex and race can pose problems such as loss of diverse perspectives, difficulty in establishing common ground between groups, and people who are in the minority possibly missing opportunities because they did not receive the information.
Resentment—This can occur when the perception is that groups are not being treated fairly, which can lead to reduction in productivity and increase in turnover.
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13. Challenges in Managing Diversity
Retention
Competition for Opportunities
Retention—The main complaint among female and minority employees is that they lack career growth opportunities. The perception that their upward mobility is thwarted grows stronger at higher levels as women and minorities bump up against the glass ceiling, an invisible barrier in the organization that prevents them from rising to a higher position.
Competition for Opportunities—As minorities grow both proportionately and absolutely in the U.S. population, competition for jobs and opportunities is likely to become much stronger. Many employers are having to decide which minority group is most deserving, as many minorities are jockeying for advancement.
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14. Diversity in Organizations
African Americans
Asian Americans
People with Disabilities
The Foreign Born
Homosexuals
Latinos
Older Workers
Religious Minorities
Women
The elements of diversity tend to have a profound impact on how people relate to one another. Many groups feel like they do not fit in because they are part of an underrepresented group in the company.
African Americans make up 13% of U.S. population. Many still face intentional racism and many are still less educated than whites, leaving them at a disadvantage.
Asian Americans make up about 5.6 % of U.S. population. Many have done very well in the technical fields and are very well represented in higher education institutions, but are underrepresented in top corporate positions. Often, they are stereotyped as being too cautious and reserved. And, because of their educational attainment, many are viewed as “advantaged” and thus not deserving of special consideration for hiring and promotion.
People with disabilities make up approximately 43.5% of the U.S. population; 15 million are actively employed and 6 million subsist on social security payments and disability insurance. At least 3.7 million people with severe disabilities work. The issues are that (1) social acceptance of disabilities has not advanced much and people with disabilities are scorned and questioned; (2) people with disabilities are often seen as less capable than others; (3) employers are afraid to hire people with disabilities or put them in responsible positions for fear that they may quit when the work pressure mounts; and (4) many employers have overestimated the costs of accommodating employees with disabilities.
Foreign born make up approximately 14% of the U.S. population. At least 30 million immigrants have come to the United States over the past 30 years. Public policy has tended toward tightening immigration laws. Immigration has also become a major issue in a globalized economy.
Homosexuals are estimated to be about 1% to 10% of the population. In the past, federal legislation offered little legal protection based on sexual
orientation, but that is changing.
Latinos make up about 50 million in the U.S. population. Many face language barriers and cultural clashes of value differences, and Latinos of African or Latin American Indian descent often face racial discrimination because of skin color.
Older workers make up 47% of the population and are 40 or older. The most common negative assumption about older workers is that they are less motivated, are less likely to change, and cannot learn new methods, and that they are “fire proof.”
Religious minorities—approximately 4% of the U.S. population professes to be Islamic, Hindu, Taoist, or an adherent of other non-Christian beliefs. Rising intolerance is likely to fuel discrimination in the workplace.
Women—The projected participation rate for women in the workforce is expected to be about equal that of males, yet women’s earnings have not mirrored their rising participation trend. Now, women earn approximately 73% of what men earn. Approximately 52% of women now hold managerial positions, up from 12% in the early 1970s.
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15. Factors Affecting Women’s Earnings and Mobility
Biological constraints and social roles
Male-dominated corporate culture
Exclusionary networks
Sexual harassment
Several factors may account for the earning differential between women and men and women’s lack of upward mobility. Some of these reasons include:
Biological constraints and social roles—After five decades of feminism, women continue to encounter a fairly rigid set of expectations regarding their roles and behavior that extend far beyond biological constraints. Women are still the primary caretakers for children and perform most of the household duties. Interestingly enough, only a tiny portion of companies provide day care and other support options.
Male-dominated corporate culture—Most sex differences are not related to performance, particularly in white-collar occupations, where sheer physical strength is seldom required. Men tend to progress in organizations (leadership positions) because they exhibit traits such as (1) more aggressive behavior, (2) more verbal interaction, (3) focusing on “output” remarks rather than “process” issues, (4) less willing to expose vulnerabilities, (5) task oriented, (6) and less sensitive.
Exclusionary networks—Many women are hindered by lack of access to the old boys’ network, the informal relationships formed between male managers and executives. Thus, many women are left out of informational conversations that would help them get ahead.
Sexual harassment—Women have to confront sexual harassment to a greater extent than men do. Approximately one in five civil suits now concerns harassment and discrimination.
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16. Improving Management of Diversity
Creating an Inclusive Organizational Culture
Top Management Commitment to Valuing Diversity
Appraising and Rewarding Manager
Diversity Training Programs
Support Groups
Accommodation of Family Needs
In order for organizations to succeed in diversity initiatives, it is important for firms to create systems that work and improve diversity outcomes. Organizations that have made great strides in successfully managing diversity tend to share a number of best practices. These best practices include:
Creating an Inclusive Organizational Culture
Top Management Commitment to Valuing Diversity
Appraising and Rewarding Manager
Diversity Training Programs
Support Groups
Accommodation of Family Needs
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17. Improving Management of Diversity
Senior Mentoring Programs
Apprenticeships
Communication Standards
Diversity Audits
Management Responsibility and Accountability
Other initiatives for improving management of diversity include:
Senior Mentoring Programs
Apprenticeships
Communication Standards
Diversity Audits
Management Responsibility and Accountability
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18. Some Warnings Avoiding the Appearance of “White Male Bashing”
Avoiding the Promotion of Stereotypes
Two potential pitfalls must be avoided if diversity management programs are to be successful:
1. Avoiding the appearance of “white male bashing”—Disproving the accusation that managing diversity is just another catchphrase for providing opportunities for women and minorities at the expense of white males is crucial to successful management of diversity programs. Otherwise, the programs are likely to engender resentment, heighten anxieties, and inflame the prejudices of those who feel threatened. Management should continue to promote a positive atmosphere of diversity.
2. Avoiding the promotion of stereotypes—An inherent danger in diversity programs is inadvertent reinforcement of the notion that one can draw conclusions about a particular person based simply on his or her group characteristics. Differences between individuals within any given group are almost always greater than “average” or typical differences between any two groups. Because diversity training programs tend to overdramatize diversity, many participants in the programs may be lead to hold assumptions regarding the groups discussed that are totally incorrect.
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19. Summary and Conclusions
What Is Diversity?
Challenges in Managing Employee Diversity
Diversity in Organizations
Improving the Management of Diversity
Some Warnings
When diversity is managed well, it can lead to many benefits for the organization and the organization will competitively prosper. However, diversity is not without its challenges and pitfalls to implementing the diversity training, culture, and communication in the best manner possible. It’s important for all members of the organization, and especially the top management, to embrace and “walk the talk” of being a culturally diverse organization.
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